Shuffle
by WeeLittleBeastie
Summary: A free-write exercise involving an iPod on shuffle. Nothing special. No slash. Read/Review?


A/N: I've hit massive writers block for the last few months, so I decided to try a free-write exercise of sorts. Basically I put my iPod on shuffle, and wrote for the duration of each song the first thing that came to me.

I don't own Star Trek.

Please forgive my strange array of music, and also the weird connections my mind makes between lyrics and ideas... haha. Enjoy.

* * *

**Fly Me To the Moon - Frank Sinatra  
**

Jim Kirk cannot imagine how the night could get much better. The Alterans have really outdone themselves this time.

As he twirls a particularly pretty Alter woman across the wooden dance floor, he finds himself admiring how much this looks like an Earth-style garden party, complete with colored paper lamps. And he certainly can't help but laugh when he sees one of the women snag his first officer and send him spinning awkwardly across the dance floor.

**Great Big World - Poverty Branch  
**

When Jim invited him to make use of his shore leave to go speeding across the countryside on two-wheeled death-machines, McCoy almost laughed in his face. Almost.

Now, as he watches fields of crops whip past him and feels the sun on his face and the wind blowing his hair into complete disarray, he doesn't regret not laughing. There's something to this, he thinks, a sense of freedom that he's not surprised to find Jim is drawn to. He turns his eyes forward to see the younger man bent over his bike, break-necking down the freeway as fast as he can go.

**Crazy Train - Black Sabbath  
**

The first time Spock ever sees his captain partake of karaoke, his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. It's an earth custom he does not particularly understand; McCoy has tried and failed to explain the appeal it holds for "those of us who actually appreciate small things in life". Spock cannot fathom why singing off-key in front of an audience of one's half-inebriated peers is in any way appealing, but he agrees to go this time at the insistence of his friend.

The song is far too loud and the lyrics about a primitive locomotive and its relationship with insanity make no sense, and Jim is hardly a great singer, but by the end of the spectacle, Spock finds one boot toe tapping unexpectedly along with the music.

**Always and Never - Coheed and Cambria  
**

There's mud on his shoes, he notices. Two hours he spent polishing the damn things and now they're streaked with mud. Jim shakes the rain from his hat and sighs, his eyes glued to the small cross in the yard that bears his mother's name.

One other time, he remembers, seeing a white cross like this one. Only that time, it represented four thousand people brutally murdered. His eyes squeeze shut and a pained expression briefly crosses his face as he remembers the gnawing feeling of hunger, the constant fear, the cold, his concern for the eight other children he'd lived with in a network of tiny caves for three months until the Federation had finally arrived.

This pain is the first in a long time to even come close to Tarsus IV.

**Girl Is On My Mind - The Black Keys  
**

The music is too loud, and he's not nearly drunk enough. The girl currently pressing her body against his on the dance floor is hardly his type, but right now he doesn't care.

He's trying to forget. Tonight, he just wants to forget.

But his memory seems not to agree. Every so often he sees a flash of green in the corners of his eyes, hears her distinctive laugh from across the room.

One year ago he found out she'd been destroyed in the battle with the Narada. The one girl he'd ever been serious about was murdered by a man who harbored enough hate to destroy billions of lives.

So he raises his bottle in a half-drunken toast and downs the last of the bourbon in her memory.

* * *

_So, there it is. I might do more of these eventually, next time I hit a snag... reviews are great, but please be nice. I'm by no means an expert in the field of writing; it's just something I do for fun. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames make me sad. D: _


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